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I think Christy looks radiant. She has just finished her 75 burpees. This is an interesting workout. Pretty dull on paper. Lackluster on the whiteboard. But the effect…
As Dave explained it, it is possible to do burpees until you pass out. You really don’t exactly reach muscular failure. You can’t possibly fail technically. You aren’t putting yourself at risk of permanent injury if you get sloppy. It is just those aching legs and bursting lungs. Your lungs will draw another breath and your legs will get you up off the floor again. Your pace is determined, in part, by attitude, fortitude and ability to suffer. Obviously, fitness plays a huge role in your time, but what I predict is that you will be impressed by your improvement in the very near future even though your fitness will not have had time to progress all that much. I was so pleased watching all of you that just kept moving, no matter how slowly. You didn’t stop. High five to all of you that just kept going. Congrats also to the lovely and flexible Mateo M. who did it in 3:11! Someone get him next time.
Andres’ class has a certain responsibility. Usually it is your trainer’s job to help you keep on track with your goals and help you with accountability. But Andres has set himself an impressive goal of cleaning up the sailor language. The thing is, everyone loves a sailor, but this will be helpful for those of us trying to create family/work/safe video with Andres in it. I believe it is 5 burpees for each linguistic misstep. Last night, I think it was 35. I think your class should keep a total burpee count for the month for you. This will be interesting.
I know you all live in the desert. Some of you are even from the desert, so it is absolutely legitimate that rowing might not be your best skill. But, now, you have to row sometimes and I promise IT GETS MUCH EASIER IF YOU DO IT PROPERLY!! Flailing around on the rower at high speed does not get you very far very fast. I remember standing behind 4 men on our rowers, one of whom was the always-magnificent Mike Heinz. Mike is a very good rower, like the kind that gets calories in the high 20s on “Fight Gone Bad”. I watched all 4 screens on the rowers. The other 3 guys were rowing like mad men. Their boats would have capsized. Man overboard. Mike was rowing so smoothly he could have been taking his Grandma out for a picnic. Mike had fewer stroked per minute and was quite a lot faster than the other guys. Do you want to grow up and row like Mike H.? Picnics on the Thames and all that? or do you want your picnic hamper at the bottom of the Charles River headed into the sewage sludge of Boston Harbor? Do you want the Harvard crew to have to come rescue you? or do you want to win a CrossFit workout someday? I’m pretty sure when Linda was rowing this morning her mental imagery was right here. Just where Concept 2 wants it. Check this out.
Jerry P. knows how to row. Most of you haven’t met Jerry because he comes to the 7am which is too bad for you all. I am shameless when it comes to pulling out all stops to improve my CrossFitters however, so rather than Tom G. being the only one who gets better at rowing, I asked Jerry to help all of you. He said, “yes” because he is so nice.
March 13, Saturday at 11:00am for about an hour. Jerry, please chime in with any comments that might convince these folks to come and learn from you. Did I say it was free? Sign up on the counter.
  
A crew of us, Carl, Matt T, Janice, Andres, Dave and Kate headed out to get the Climb for a Cure started off right on Saturday. We teamed up with Simply Dinners owner, and 9am CrossFitter, Maureen to send the Climbers off warmed up and looking for handmade chocolates. Carl was undoubtedly the best at making sure every person there knew about CrossFit Works, but I think it was Maureen’s chocolates that really brought people close. As for the warm up, nothing makes me feel more like I’m on a silly TV exercise show than doing jumping jacks on stage to music with Andres, Kate, Janice and Matt doing jumping jacks behind me…Anyway, it was very inspiring to see all those people out there with their teams ready to tackle A Mtn. If you happened to be the proud recipient of a blue wrist band, send an email to us through our “Contact” option and you might win a prize…
 You all know how strongly I feel about dressing properly for things. This was the best dressed family there!! My personal favorites.
 
We here at CrossFit Works like to see what you are made of every now and then. What happens when you are asked to do something unusual with the potential to make you look silly, fall down or gasp!…lose? Without getting too philosophical, CrossFit done properly with a team/group component can strengthen you for life in the real world. We can give you practice with things way outside your comfort zone. We can put you on the spot and have everyone watch you. We can ask you to do something you really don’t want to do. What better place to be put in one of those uncomfortable, challenging situations than in your group class with all its accompanying camaraderie. I’m pretty sure the definition of camaraderie involves sometimes making fun of your comrades. Check out what happened (by clicking on the word “happened”) to Miranda O., one of CrossFit Headquarter’s staff members during the Utah, Nevada sectionals last week. How cool is that she was laughing at herself. That is CrossFit. Not to mention Miranda’s unbelievable performance. Enjoy the ridiculous. It seems that Wheelbarrow Champions of the 6pm class are Jordan and Dietrich with Crandall and Mike G. close on their wheels, I mean heels-haha.
Check out the 6pm class as they listen to Dave explain “Fran”. Hilarious. I believe we should hold a contest for the best cartoon captions for each class member. Remember, for lots of these folks this is their first “Fran” experience.
  
And-Andres’ 5:30pm class got a little surprise check on their progress in the Women’s Get-Some Challenge. Everyone’s pushup numbers are inching up. Excellent. Next time Will, during the partner carry, I’d go with Danielle or Rene. You’ll be safer.
 Lori L., Liz C., Danielle (our one and only), Rene L. and Jessica E.
Congratulations on “Fran” yesterday everyone. Two standouts were the always lovely Mike G. who did his in 5:35! A significant personal best. And…drumroll, maybe? Midori S. took SEVEN MINUTES off her previous time with the same version of the workout!!! Sometimes, measuring and timing things is fabulously rewarding.
How are all you Get-Some Challengers doing? Have you forgotten? I wanted to inspire you all with a profile of a CrossFit athlete. Nearly every day I hear questions from women about how they don’t want to look like a “crossfit woman” or if they don’t know what that is, about how they don’t want big bulky muscles. This is interesting to me, since the flip side of not wanting to appear too strong might be that you are more comfortable appearing weak, which breaks my heart. I’m all for being proud of looking strong. But each of us has our own world view and it is true that wearing those super skinny jeans is not always so easy when your quads are, well…existant. However, my point today is that much of how you end up appearing does not have to do with how much weight you can lift or how strong you are, it has to do with your genetics. I want you to look at this picture of Lauren Plumey, CrossFit Games competitor out of CrossFit Milford, 5th place at last year’s Northeast Qualifiers.
 Now, I want you to look at her numbers:
Age: 29
Height 5′ 8″
Weight 131
Date of Birth Jan. 29 1980
Place of Birth New Haven, CT
Date Starting CrossFit May, 2008
Lives in West Haven, CT
Affiliate: CrossFit Milford
Fran 4.12
Cindy 23
Helen 8.12
Diane 10.32
Grace 3.08
Fight Gone Bad 321
Filthy Fifty 21.12
Deadlift 315
Press 95
Back Squat 205
Clean and jerk 145
Max Pull-ups 37
5′8″ at 131lbs means that is a pretty lithe girl! But she is also very strong. Pretty cool.
Good rainy Sunday evening all.
Paleo soup on the stove right now. I’ll get it on my blogspot soon and check out Kate’s most recent post!! Fantastic. Playing restaurant with Paleo options. Remember you can find links to our individual blogs if you look above on the “Trainer” option.
 Thumbs up to the rock solid 6am class-I think you have a name, but what is it?
I’d like to exhort you all to make a commitment to your consistency this week. On your behalf I’ve taken a little look at the week’s programming and it is GOOD. But only if you actually do it the way it is meant to be done. The second workout follows the first and on and on. That is how you benefit. Our workouts are decently impressive as stand alone things, but together…strung together like lovely lines in a poem…they are awesome. Looking at the attendance rosters for the last couple weeks we see a sad trend. This trend is described as “Where are you??” You don’t really want to fit those statistics of the average person who does great in January, declines in February and by March just pays the gym membership so the gym owner can sit waiting, lonely-like for their clients who used to come. I will tell you that one of the workouts, not Monday’s (but you all come on Monday, I don’t know where you are by Thursday though) is a giant favorite that we get asked for a lot. We have it for you, but if you don’t come you don’t get to do it. It is gonna be a good week. Be here.
Mmmmm, lunch. Half a bag of Trader Joe’s mache (or by its non-Yuppie, weed name, lamb’s quarters), 1/2 box of Trader Joe’s microgreens, 4oz leftover grilled steak, a little olive oil, sea salt and black pepper. What does it mean to be ready for a Level II nutrition talk? It means you have committed to taking full responsibility for what you put in your body and the impact it has on your well being and performance. You’ve written it down and you are ready to talk about it honestly. It means you have graduated beyond saying things like “I eat pretty well”. It means you have moved past thinking you are eating optimally and actually assessing it. It also means you have, at least for a few weeks. put your addiction to and reliance on “comfort foods” to the test. The last two authors in the mainstream media that have written about the Paleo diet both concluded that it was not reasonable because it was too difficult to give up certain foods they missed and therefore it didn’t get the thumbs up. Maybe they should have concluded with, “although there are thousands of other people following this diet and doing phenomenally well on it, I simply didn’t have the ability to do it and therefore the benefits are beyond my reach.” More importantly than anything else when it comes to assessing what you eat and how you respond to it, honesty is important. If you repeatedly reach for “comfort foods” even though you know they contribute to sluggishness and slow performance or weight gain, then you are not the master of your mouth. There is absolutely a time and place for all kinds of foods, maybe even green jello and twinkies. The key is, “Are you in control of what goes into your mouth? Do you eat the food you eat because you really want to and you know it will benefit you? or because you can’t stop yourself, but you tell yourself and me and your fellow crossfitters it isn’t that bad to eat the way you do?” Try keeping a food journal for 3 weeks, coming to a Level II nutrition talk and working through some of this stuff. Or ask Lori L. who recently said that when she finally just committed to doing it, the weight started melting off and it wasn’t that hard after all. Nice work Lori.
I would like to highlight Alma U. today for 2 BIG reasons. First of all, Alma is showing a little of that “I really want to get this figured out spirit!” which we love. After her 1RM power snatch last week during class she knew she could get it a little better with more practice, so she came to Open Gym on Saturday and added 5lbs! And, almost as cool as adding 5lbs to her Power Snatch, Alma has lost 4 clothing sizes!!! Cool. Alma is cool. She drives a truck and isn’t afraid of horses. Maybe we should have a hay bale tossing workout sometime. Would you win Alma? I’m not afraid of hay bales since my family produces those, but horses…another story. Give Alma a high five when you see her.
Hey all!
 Which is scarier? Learning to dance or learning CrossFit?
We get fired up once a month to do a workout that is open to the public. CrossFit is a little tricky to “try out” because it takes some training and adjusting to learn how it is done. This reminds me that I want to give a special high five to four new CrossFitters in the 6pm class: Angelica, Andrew, Jenny and Christy. Joining the 6pm class is no light undertaking and these four have done it with style and grace even when their trainers (alright, me and Dave) forget to fill them in on exactly how the whole thing goes or give a fast, physics-like explanation of some lifting percentages. Angelica even refuses to listen when Dave says “No dancing” and as everyone knows, I like a girl who doesn’t listen to Dave’s nonsense. Christy already shoulder presses more than I really like to admit. Welcome to 6pm.
Back to how CrossFit is challenging to “try out”. So we plan a workout every month that anyone, regardless of fitness level or training expereience can come and participate in. In other words, this is the chance to get your friends, acquaintances, cubicle mates, enemies, relatives, ex-girlfriends, future lovers, bosses, subordinates, band mates, neighbors and professors in to do what you do. If you know someone in your life who would benefit from CrossFit or personal training from one of us, this Saturday at 2:00pm is the time to get them in the door.
  Silas was my track partner on Sunday. Anyone else up for late morning Sunday track workouts?
This is a concept that is central to CrossFit theory and practise. ”Comfortable with uncomfortable”. The basic idea is that if you stay in your comfort zone you remain comfortable, but you don’t take it to the next level. On Sunday I really tried to wrap my mind around just what happens to me when I start to feel uncomfortable. It was an enlightening experience. I encourage you to have a similar experience. Here is how it went: I was recently discussing my personal goals with my Coach. His instructions to me were: “run 400m splits at a puke-in-your-shoes-fast-pace”. What that meant to me when he said it was “go really fast”. On Sunday I went to the track and ran 6 x 400m splits. It was a kick in the knee in terms of realizing how I do not hold up well under “uncomfortable”. In fact, I can pinpoint the precise moment of and response to the discomfort. My splits took me between 1:39 and 1:42. At exactly 50 seconds into the run my legs got tired and instantly started to slow. At 1:15 my lungs started to hurt and my legs hurt more so I slowed down more. This meant that at the finish I was miserable and spent, but had not achieved my Coach’s instructions. I am actually unable to force myself to run fast enough and endure approximately 52 seconds of extreme discomfort so that I achieve the “puke-in-my-shoes” pace. Now, this is OK with me on a certain level. I am not interested in making myself physically sick for the sake of a few more seconds off the stop watch. Those days are long gone. But, what really bothers me, and what is a central goal of mine right now, is that I could not push myself to withstand 52 seconds of misery. I could only withstand 52 seconds of mild misery. My goal is to get more comfortable with more uncomfortableness. Now, this DOES NOT have to be your goal. Not at all. You are free to think this is a terrible goal. But I encourage you all to really tune in to exactly what happens to your body and your mind when you start to feel uncomfortable. Is it like you touched a hot stove and you instantly jump back? or can you tell yourself “legs you feel horrible, but keep going, everything will be fine in 52 seconds.”? I’m interested in your thoughts.
One of my favorite, non-CrossFit women’s fitness blogs is Krista’s over at Stumptuous. She keeps an eye on all things dirty, heavy, real and womanly. She punches, lifts heavy weights, looks awesome and shares smart stuff. She brought my attention to a study regarding women on birth control pills and muscle building. This is an interesting topic actually and keeps us on track to remind ourselves that we have a gym full of women Getting-Some in the Challenge right now. Since birth control pills are exogenous hormones and since body composition (and daily strength) are controlled by hormones it makes duh! kind of sense that the two things would be interconnected. Still, this is not a topic that many researchers have tackled. Aimee Anaya over at Catalyst Athletics spoke to us at the Black Box Summit about the connection between the menstrual cycle and her strength. Aimee is a competitive Olympic Lifter and discusses the use of birth control pills to manipulate the timing of the menstrual cycle relative to competitions. Now, we might have our own personal opinions on that practise, but the fact is that reproductive hormones affect this sort of thing. I like to remind myself that competitive athletics is not always synonymous with health and wellness. Anyway, here is what the study found (OC stands for Oral Contraceptive):
The researchers found that:
- there were significant differences in lean mass gains (OC: 2.1±2.1% vs. non-OC: 3.5±3.2% / OC: 1.0±1.0kg vs. no-OC: 1.6±1.4kg, p<0.05). However, other muscle responses such as strength gains and arm/leg circumferences were similar between the OC and non-OC users.
- resting/fasting blood concentrations of the anabolic hormones were significantly lower in women taking OC vs. non-OC users throughout the study period. At the same time, plasma concentrations of cortisol (catabolic hormone) were elevated.
- those OC users had reduced DHEA hormone at the end of the training period. By contrast, the other participants’ levels did not change.
Conclusion
According to the researchers, “We were surprised at the magnitude of differences in muscle gains between the two groups, with the non-OC women gaining more than 60% greater muscle mass than their OC counterpart.” They added that even though the study has observed negative effects of oral contraceptive use on muscle gain in the context of resistance exercise training, “future studies are needed to help explain the reasons behind the results.”
Personally,even more so than the negative impact on strength I would like to see further study of the elevated cortisol levels. Cortisol is our primary stress hormone and is linked to all kinds of menacing health issues. Cortisol is catabolic which means it breaks down muscle. It is one of the primary reasons endurance athletes are not muscular.
CrossFitting Sisters, if you really care about your strength advances and your 1 rep maxes, match up your lifting to your menstrual cycle. Chances are you’ll see some patterns and decide you might want to schedule a personal training session or come to Open Gym for your 1RM deadlift some months. I promise a more manly post tomorrow.
I like it when the 5k comes up. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t like running, but it is really cool to see how people respond to this task. This morning we had Matt M. and Adrian take the top spots. Seems Adrian had a little extra motivation from two hot women in a truck-perhaps by the names of Lorna and Theresa. Pretty sure you guys are the reason he didn’t straggle in several minutes later. Lorna and Summer have the top women’s spots. So, it is fun to know people are out there running fast, but the 5k is almost more inspiring because of the people who think they can’t do it, but do. Maureen Y. got some encouragement from Mike H. yesterday and finished without resting. It has been nearly 20 yrs since her last 5k. Fantastic. And you weren’t that slow Maureen. When I drove home last night I saw James running backwards alongside one of his fellow CrossFitters keeping her going. That was me honking at you all! If you haven’t met James yet, you obviously should. I’m gonna get James to run with me too. Anyway, very nice work everyone.
I want to clarify a little misconception about size and strength. Clearly, we all know that a tiny person will not have as much brute strength capability as a larger person. We know some of us are trying desperately to get a few pounds added to our bony frame so we can be a little more powerful. Sometimes we program workouts that call for a lift to be a percentage of your bodyweight. So, yes, in a sense, size matters. But of course, as we all know, technique is at least as important as size-if not more so, at least in Snatching, which is of course, what I’m talking about here. This video is an Olympic Lifting competition-thanks to Dutch Lowy for posting it on his blog where I saw it. These guys are in the 69kg weight class. This means they must weigh less than 151.8lbs! These are small guys. The Snatches in this video are between 140kg-160kg. In case your elementary school teacher didn’t believe in the metric system, 160kg is about 352lbs!! Repeat: a 352lb Snatch at a bodyweight of less than 152lbs. Now that I wrote this I will have to stop making excuses about why I am weaker than Kate and Jenny!!
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